Injection plastic basket moulding

In addition, our company has established cooperative relationships with plastic raw material suppliers, printing manufacturers, etc. to ensure the supply of raw materials and printing quality. Through our rich experience and perfect supply chain, our company can provide customers with high-quality customized injection plastic basket moulding products to meet their specific needs. At the same time, we have 10 years of professional foreign trade service experience, understand the foreign trade process, and better serve our customers. For injection plastic basket moulding products, we can make corresponding plastic parts, which is mainly done through injection molds.

The injection molding process for a plastic shopping basket is a typical example of producing large, thin-walled products, requiring large molds and high-tonnage injection molding machines. The core challenge lies in ensuring that the molten plastic quickly and evenly fills the large mold cavity, while maintaining sufficient rigidity and toughness, and keeping costs under control.

The following is a detailed breakdown of the process:

The Complete Injection Molding Process for a Plastic Shopping Basket

Phase 1: Material Preparation and Processing

Material Selection:

Main Materials: High-flow, high-impact polypropylene (PP) or high-density polyethylene (HDPE) are the absolute mainstream.

Reasons for Selection: Low cost, good toughness, flex resistance (preventing handle breakage), light weight, and compliance with food contact standards.

Additives: Masterbatch is often added to create the desired color (e.g., red, blue, gray). For outdoor use, a UV inhibitor is required to prevent aging and brittleness.

Drying:

Although PP does not absorb much water, to ensure optimal quality, it is typically dried at 60-80°C for 1-2 hours to remove traces of moisture and prevent air marks or silver streaks on the surface.

Phase Two: Mold Design and Features

Shopping basket molds are large and complex, and their design directly impacts product quality and production efficiency.

Hot runner system: Essential. Using multiple hot nozzles ensures rapid and uniform injection of the melt from multiple locations into the large cavity, significantly reducing flow length ratios and weld mark strength while conserving raw material (eliminating cold slugs).

Cooling system: Design is crucial. Efficient and uniform cooling water circuits are essential to shorten cooling times, which can reach tens of seconds, and improve production efficiency. Uneven cooling can cause the basket to warp and deform.

Venting system: Sufficient venting slots must be provided at the final filling point of the melt. Otherwise, trapped air can lead to burning (yellowing and carbonization of the part surface) or incomplete filling.

Ejector system: Due to the basket's deep depth, a large number of ejectors or pushers are required to eject the part with uniform and steady force to prevent whitening or deformation.

Slider mechanism: If the basket design incorporates complex features such as internal buckling, a slider mechanism is required for demolding.

Stage 3: Injection Molding Process

This is the core step performed on large injection molding machines (typically with clamping forces exceeding 1,000 tons).

Mold Closing: The large moving and fixed molds close under high pressure, forming a sealed cavity.

Injection:

Dried plastic granules are heated and melted in the barrel.

Driven by high pressure, the screw injects the molten plastic into the mold cavity at a medium-high speed. Injection speed and timing require precise control.

Holding Pressure:

After injection, the screw maintains a constant pressure to replenish the mold cavity with material lost due to cooling shrinkage.

Holding pressure is critical: The setting of holding pressure and time directly affects the product's size, weight, and whether shrinkage will occur (especially at the interface between ribs and wall thickness).

Cooling:

The plastic cools within the mold cavity to solidify its shape. Due to the large size of shopping carts, cooling takes a long time, making it the most time-consuming part of the entire production cycle. During this time, cooling water is continuously flowed through the cooling channels within the mold to dissipate heat.

Mold Opening & Ejection:

The mold opens, and the ejector mechanism (ejector pin or push plate) pushes the molded shopping basket out of the cavity.

A robotic arm or automated device automatically reaches in, picks up the basket, and places it on a conveyor or collection bin, achieving fully automated production.

Phase 4: Post-Processing & Quality Control

De-gating: Baskets produced with hot runner molds generally do not have handles, but there may be minor marks at the hot nozzle contact point, which generally do not require treatment.

Quality Control:

Visual Inspection: Check for defects such as missing material, flash, burns, color difference, and shrinkage depressions.

Dimensional Inspection: Spot-check key dimensions (length, width, height, and diagonal) to ensure they are within tolerance and stack smoothly.

Functional Testing:

Load Test: Loads a heavy object (such as a sandbag) into the basket to test its load-bearing capacity and deformation to ensure it meets standards.

Drop Test: Simulates a drop from a cart to test its toughness and impact resistance.

Stacking Test: Checks whether multiple baskets can be easily and stably stacked together, a core function of a shopping basket.

Process Summary and Key Points

Plastic Pellets + Masterbatch → Drying → Material Absorption → Melt Plasticization → High-Pressure Injection → Pressure Holding and Shrinkage Feeding → Full Cooling → Mold Opening and Ejection → Robotic Part Retrieval → Centralized Collection → Full/Spot Inspection → Packaging and Warehousing

Core Competencies of an Excellent Manufacturer:

Large Mold Expertise: Ability to design and manufacture stable, efficient, and long-lasting large multi-cavity hot runner molds.

Process Optimization Capabilities: Precisely control injection and pressure holding curves to address warpage, shrinkage, and weld marks that are common on large, thin-walled parts.

Automated Integration: The entire production line is highly automated, from raw material conveying, injection molding, product removal, to stacking, minimizing manual labor and ensuring efficiency and cost control.

Quality Assurance System: Strict testing standards ensure that each shopping basket meets the strength and durability requirements of everyday commercial use.

We are a injection plastic basket moulding manufacturer, providing high-quality injection plastic basket moulding manufacturing. As long as you want to customize/develop injection plastic basket moulding products, you can find us. We have professional injection mold design and mature manufacturing technology, providing you with one-stop service, from product design-mold making-product production-product packaging-product transportation, we can help you in every link. As long as you come to us, we will provide you with the ultimate service and satisfy you in terms of product quality, production time, information dialogue, etc.

Plastic Injection Mould making

Plastic molding specifications

Mold design:

Transaction process:

Mold testing:

Product packaging

Factory

We are Custom Plastic Mold factory. Our factory is plastic injection mold maker. we has 17 years of experience in professional custom plastic mold and 10 years of foreign trade experience. We are custom Plastic Mold supplier. We can provide custom Plastic Mold service. Our factory can make the Injection molded plastic parts, and the quality of the products will satisfy you.

We have more than 50 high-end machines and hundreds of engineers and designers. We can provide one-stop service, from product design - mold making - product production - product packaging - transportation. We have a complete production chain. We can meet all your requirements.

Services we provide:

Professional custom mold service, Plastic mold design and manufacturing .plastic product production, product design, mold design, blow mold customization, rotational mold customization, die-casting mold customization. 3D printing services, CNC manufacturing services, product packaging, customized packaging, shipping services.

We always adhere to the principles of quality first and time first. While providing customers with the highest quality products, try to maximize the production efficiency and shorten production time. We are proud to tell every customer that our company has not lost any customer since its establishment.If there is a problem with the product, we will seek a solution actively and take responsibility to the end.

FAQ

Q1: Are you trading company or manufacturer ?

A: We are manufacturers.

Q2. When can I get the quotation?

A: We usually quote within 2 days after we get your inquiry.

If you are very urgent, please call us or tell us in your email so that we can quote for you first.

Q3. How long is the lead-time for mold?

A: It all depends on the products' size and complexity. Normally, the lead time is 25 days.

Q4. I have no 3D drawing, how should I start the new project?

A: You can supply us a molding sample, we will help you finish the 3D drawing design.

Q5. Before shipment, how to make sure the products quality?

A: If you don't come to our factory and also don't have the third party for inspection, we will be as your inspection worker.

We will supply you a video for production process detail include process report, products size structure and surface detail, packing detail and so on.

Q6. What is your payment terms?

A: Mold Payment: 40% deposit by T/T in advance, 30% second mold payment before sending out the first trial samples, 30% mold balance after you agree the final samples.

B:Production Payment: 50% deposit in advance, 50% before sending out the final goods.

Q7: How do you make our business long-term and good relationship?

A:1. We keep good quality and competitive price to ensure our customers benefit for best quality products.

2. We respect every customer as our friend and we sincerely do business and make friends with them, no matter where they come from.